Dante's Inferno
by Akasha-Vurdmeister
Summary: Set before the events of DMC3, Dante has a run-in with the trickster demoness Eris... randomness and insanity ensues as she hounds him for revenge! Some OOC from Dante is to be expected.
1. Cruel and Unusual Punishment

This fanfic of mine isn't exactly new... it's been around in the Devil May Cry forums and deviantART for quite some time now. But I decided to share it with more people!

Yes, my username in the DMC forum is Eris Strife, and I have the same username here as in deviantART.

Disclaimer: I do NOT own Devil May Cry or the characters mentioned in it except my original character, Eris. All works are purely fictitious; any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental. (lol!)

**Cruel and Unusual Punishment**

It has been years since the demon attack on his family. Dante continued to walk along the streets, ignoring the passers-by as they stared at him. Despite living in the same town for most of his life, apparently, white hair on a youth is very attention-grabbing.

He had gone 3 days without food, only managing to tide himself over with water from the good people with a garden hose. He had to find a job... fast.

Out of nowhere, a huge rubber hammer descended and bonked him on the head.

"What the hell?" Dante grabbed the hammer on its second descent and stopped it cold. "Where the hell did you come from?"

A small pixie-like girl appeared with a "poof!" and started laughing, "You just said it! Hell! 'Where the hell did you come from'!"

Dante was ****ed, to say the least. He was hungry, and this demon (obviously she ain't human) appears and starts tormenting him? He slashed at her, only to have her disappear and reappear seated on his head.

"That is like, so rude!" she laughed again, and then she teleported back to her original position.

"I'm in no mood for games, little girl. I hate you and your kind, now get lost before I sic the Rebellion on you."

"You hate me?" the girl gave a fake dramatic sob, "Waaaaah... boohoo, poor little me." Then she became serious again, "Well, since I'm already here, it's time for your punishment!"

Dante gave her a O_o look. Haven't he been punished enough?

Before he could protest, he was warped to a different place altogether.

"Where are we? Wonderland?" Dante mouthed off as he flicked a rainbow-colored fly off his hand.

The girl grinned, "You're in Hell."

"This is Hell?" Dante nearly shouted, "Hell is supposed to be full of lakes of fire, sulfur and-"

"Yeah, yeah, I did a little redecorating, so what? Would you rather Hell look... like _this_?" the girl finished her sentence, and the "Wonderland" was charred to a crisp as flames shot up and devoured everything.

Dante didn't even flinch from the fire. He replied, "Fine, whatever. Go back to that cutesy Wonderland thing."

The flames flickered and died out, and "Wonderland" sprouted back out from the ground.

"Who the hell are you anyway? C'mon, even demons must have a name," Dante glanced at the girl, who merely replied, "I'm Eris. But not the _real_ Eris. The real Eris is somewhere in Demonville."

"So do I call you 'Fake Eris'?"

"No, and shut up. Just call me Eris."

"But you just said the real Eris isn't-"

"Shut up!" Eris whipped the rubber hammer out of nowhere and whacked Dante on the head again. As Dante ducked at the second swing, Eris put the hammer back into Hammerspace and said, "just pretend I'm from a parallel universe."

"How the hell do you do all those things you did?"

"... Hammerspace."

Dante gave another O_o look. "Okay. Whatever. You said it's time for my punishment? Well, _bring it on!_" he taunted at her, and waved her over.

Eris grinned, "Welcome to Hell, buddy."

"What? I thought I already am-" Dante didn't even get to finish his sentence before a crowd of rabid fangirls swarmed over him. "Who the hell are these people? Get off me!"

Eris was laughing so hard that she fell off the invisible chair she was seated on. "These are the good fangirls from my side of the parallel universe."

"I'M NOT EVEN A ROCK STAR!"

"You're a game character. That's even better than a rock star!" Eris pointed out.

"This is madness!" Dante shouted as he tried to jump out of the crowd.

"No, this is Sparda!" Eris' grin grew wider as she looked up, and watched a giant statue of Sparda land on Dante. For some reason, the swarm of fangirls had disappeared.

Dante managed to dig his way out of the ground from beneath the statue, "Why do I have to go through this **** anyway?"

"Because you said 'Bring it on'," Eris replied nonchalantly. When Dante merely stared in confusion, she yelled, "PUNK'D!" and dissolved into fits of giggles.

Dante sent the Rebellion flying in her direction, to which she merely grabbed the sword by the hilt after a sidestep, and she gushed, "Wow, I can't believe it... I really [i]am[/i] holding the Rebellion! Somebody pinch me! OW!" Eris glared at Dante as he smirked and retreated after taking back the Rebellion, "Well, you said 'somebody pinch me'."

Eris pulled the rubber hammer out of Hammerspace once more. Dante eyed the hammer with a weary stare, "Are you seriously going to use that to fight? I can easily chop it into little itty bits of rubber."

"Okay, then. Humor me. _Chop it into little itty bits of rubber_!" Eris whacked Dante with the hammer, and as Dante tried to slice it apart, Eris teleported and whacked him from behind.

"Oh, God, I really _am_ in Hell!" Dante thought as he swung the Rebellion, and missed again. None of his attacks hit home. But Eris and her god-moding hammer managed to hit every single time.

Finally, Dante shouted, "STOP!"

Eris taunted, "Aww... are you tired?"

"Tired?" Dante smirked, "Me? Guess what? You're..."

Before he finished his sentence, he stabbed forward with the Rebellion, but Eris simply teleported again.

"What? Dude, that's unfair!" Dante complained. Eris floated above him, "Cheat codes are meant to imbalance the game, Dante. Haven't you learnt?"

"Where's your sense of honor?"

"I put it in my blender by accident, and turned it into a smoothie. Then I Fedex'd it to some guy in Ethiopia."

A nerve popped out of his temple as he growled, "Alright, if this is how you want to play it..." and he lunged at Eris.

Expecting Eris to teleport behind him, he braked and turned around at the last second, and managed to catch the Trickster as she teleported.

He threw her to the ground and began to beat the living daylights out of her.

"How's that for a combo? Had enough yet? Are ya gonna cry?"

Eris asked, "Who're you talking to?"

Dante stopped dead in his tracks and looked up slowly. Eris was seated on thin air again, eating a strawberry sundae.

"But you're- but I was-" he looked down, and saw a soft toy of Eris with X's where her eyes should be.

Dante began to laugh, softly at first, until it became a caterwaul of insane laughter.

Eris looked at the clipboard that materialized in her hands, and said, "Drive Dante insane, check."

Dante then stopped, "I always wanted to laugh like that. I saw it on TV."

"You do realize that I still have a whole list of things to do to you, don't you?"

"What more can you do to me?"

"Oh, you'll see," Eris gave a devious grin, "but for now, it's lunchtime, so you can go home for the time being."

Dante was warped again, and sent sprawling into his own world. He landed headfirst into a bush, and as he got up, he noticed a pizza box in front of him.

A post-it note on the box read "ENJOY! ... while you can. - Eris". Dante opened the box, and yelled, "DAMMIT!"

Plastered all over the cheese were the abominations known as olives.

* * *

To be continued...


	2. Put a banana in your ear

Author's Note: Here comes episode 2. Strictly speaking, in-story it's only been a few hours since Eris let Dante go. What madness could she possibly cause? Stay tuned. :)

BTW, the song "Put a banana in your ear" can be heard in the middle of this video:

(type YouTube's address first and add this to the back: /watch?v=QFCSXr6qnv4 )

I changed the lyrics a little bit.

Disclaimer: I do not own Devil May Cry or any of the characters in it, except my OC Eris. I do not own the song "Put a banana in your ear", and apologies to the original creator of the song. (I DID edit the lyrics somewhat) All the characters and events are purely fictitious. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental.

**"Put a banana in your ear"**

"I have _got_ to get out of this town before that little imp finds me again!" Dante thought to himself as he began to sprint along a yellow brick road where the sign read "Out of town".

Wait... yellow brick road?

Dante stopped cold, whirled around, and saw that the shops he ran past no longer existed. Instead, there was just a loooooong yellow brick road. And astroturf. And rainbows. And unicorns. And candy and sparkles and easter bunnies.

"Aw, man," Dante groaned in dismay as it struck him that he was back in Eris' redecorated Hell. Or Lala-Land, as he thought of it.

There was a loud poof and plenty of sparkling dust, and Eris appeared right in front of Dante. Dante face-palmed and said, "Great. Not again."

Eris gave him a poisonously sweet smile, "Welcome back."

"Get lost! I hate the madness that comes whenever you show up!" Dante retorted.

The girl pretended to ignore him as she said, "So, have you had lunch yet? How did you like your pizza?"

"Hated it. It had olives! Everyone knows olives are the grossest food there ever was! They're slimy, they look like eyes, and they're-"

"High in mono-unsaturated fat, iron, Vitamin E, and dietary fiber."

Dante made a face, "Blech. Why does nutrition always taste bad? And where did you hear that cr*p?"

Eris answered with a straight face, "Wikipedia."

"... no, seriously."

"Never mind," Eris waved it off, "my lunch break is over, so now it's back to Wonderland for you."

"You mean Hell."

"Oh, no. The Judge of Hell just called and he said he'll sue the pants off me if I continue to use the name 'Hell' because apparently he trademarked it and I was infringing on copyright issues-"

Dante stabbed the Rebellion into the ground and yelled, "SHUT UP!"

When he saw that Eris had stopped talking and was merely watching him, he grumbled, "What do you want now?"

"We'll be having music lessons!" Eris chimed up, and brought out an electric guitar. Dante stared at her in disbelief before exclaiming, "Finally! [i]Real[/i] music!" and immediately regretted it as Eris began to sing.

"Dante~ you look quite down  
With your big blue eyes and your big fat frown  
The world doesn't have to be so gray  
Dante~ when your clothes are crass  
And you're feeling sad or you're in distress  
I know I can kick that sad away

All you have to do is  
Put a banana in your ear~"

Dante gave her a weirded-out look, "A banana in my ear?"

Eris ignored him and continued, "Put a right banana right into your favorite ear! It's true..."

"Says who?"

"So true, once it's in the world is hard to hear  
And all the demons disappear  
So go put a banana in your ear-" Eris suddenly cut short her song and asked, "Well?"

Dante nearly pulled out his hair in frustration, "_What the hell was that about?_"

"We're extolling the virtue of bananas today. It's World Banana Celebration Day! You have to put a banana in your ear!" Eris held up a banana and grinned deviously.

"... you sure you're not just making this up to torture me?" Dante asked suspiciously.

"Of course not? I'm so hurt by your words, Dante!" Eris frowned and then shoved the banana towards Dante, "C'mon, just do it!"

Dante sliced the banana into pieces with the Rebellion, and growled, "I don't have to put up with this ****! If you're going to torment me, then I have every right to retaliate!"

Eris picked up the banana slices and cheered, "Yay! We can have banana milkshakes!"

"PAY ATTENTION WHEN I TALK TO YOU, DEMON!" Dante shouted at Eris, and tried to grab the trickster. She teleported and reappeared just out of reach.

"Hey, it's not my fault I have ADHD. I'll bet _you_ have ADHD too! Look at you, you can't stop moving, you have the attention span of a gnat, you don't follow instructions..."

"Okay, okay! I get the picture!" Dante held up both hands in a placating manner, "You can't pay attention. Chill out."

Eris whipped out two floppy disks, "I have seven gigabytes of your dirty secrets, Dante. Fear me. Rawr."

Dante pointed at the floppy disks, "I think you'll need a lot more than _that_."

"Hey, I figured if your brain can hold all the information about pizzas, strawberry sundaes and beer, then two floppy disks should be enough for your dirt."

"What? Okay, name _one_."

"You still sleep with a soft toy that looks like your dad's demon form, and you call him 'Sparda Junior'."

Dante cursed, "****! How did you _know_?"

"I didn't. I just made something up. You mean you _really_ have a soft toy called 'Sparda Junior'?"

"Uh, no." Dante replied, a little too quickly. The trickster caught on to it and snickered, "Dante has a secret~ that he will soon regret~"

In a fraction of a second, the Rebellion was out and pinned Eris to an invisible wall. The blade missed her head by millimeters, only managing to tack her by the cloth from her collar.

She laughed, "Aw... you're mad."

Dante smirked at her and said, "We'll see who's the mad one. Alright, let's see if your brain can handle simple math. What is one plus one?"

Eris stared at him. Crickets began chirping in the background. She answered hesitantly, "Eleven?"

The crickets stopped chirping. Apparently, the lameness killed them. Dante did a short victory dance, "Ah-HAH! You FAIL!"

"No, I didn't. Look, one plus one IS eleven!" Eris retorted as she wrote two number "1"s on a paper.

Dante continued to gloat, "You can't even handle simple math! You must be the dumbest demon I ever met!"

Eris suddenly transformed from her pixie form into a dual-horned, many-fanged monster. She snarled in a double-toned voice, "Wanna bet?"

Dante retrieved the Rebellion and taunted, "Look who's mad now."

Eris asked acidly, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

"I'd have to go with egg. Most creature games give you the creature in egg-form-"

"The answer is 'chicken', dumba**!" Eris reverted to pixie form and snickered, "It says so in the dictionary."

"What? Do not!"

"Do too! Look!"

True enough, the letter "c" came before "e". Dante threw the book at Eris, but she ducked, and laughed, "You failed English~ nyah~"

"**** this, I'm outta here," Dante muttered and began to walk along the yellow brick road. To his surprise, he found himself back in town. The trickster and her over-the-top cute things are nowhere to be seen.

"Finally!" Dante hooted, "I thought I'd never be rid of her!" Then he paused in mid-cheer. Something wasn't right. People were staring at him like he just ran through the street stark-naked. And for some reason, one of his ears had gone deaf.

One of the townspeople held up a hand to his mouth, as if to share a conspirational whisper, and hissed, "You've got a banana in your ear."

Dante gaped in sheer disbelief again, and he slowly turned to check his reflection in a shopfront. Sure enough, there was an accursed banana stuck in his right ear.

"... #$%."

* * *

To be continued...


	3. Elbows, Dante

Author's Note: I have taken etiquette lessons before. But it would be a blatant lie to say it made me a more sophisticated person. I still enjoy putting my elbows on the table, and it makes me feel great!

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in Devil May Cry. I only own my OC Eris. I cannot say any resemblance to real life is purely fictitious... because it is based off my own experience!

* * *

**Elbows, Dante**

The night was terrible. All through the hours of darkness, all Dante could think about was how to avoid the little imp before she manages to find him and toss him back in "Wonderland". The fact that everytime he somehow nodded off and then had a weird nightmare about singing bananas didn't help.

Just as he thought he was finally free as the sun began to rise, a familiar voice screamed right next to his ear, "GOOD MORNING!"

Dante jumped out of the couch, ducked behind a lamp and stared at Eris, who seemingly appeared from thin air. The trickster grinned at him in a sadistic way.

"Today's another new day for your punishment, Dante," Eris announced, without breaking the sadistic grin on her face.

"Gimme a break," Dante complained, "I didn't even get to sleep last night."

"Not my problem," Eris replied with indifference, "I never kept you up all night, did I? I didn't even ask the crickets to chirp all through the night to keep you awake so that you can't get any shut-eye and so you're less alert and so I can scare you in the morning."

Dante glared at her and seethed, "Those. Freakin'. Crickets. MADE A HELL OF A NOISE!"

"Like I said, I never asked them to. They volunteered," Eris suddenly glanced out the window and then said, "But enough about the crickets. Today is Etiquette and Manners Day!" She finished her sentence with a loud clap of thunder, and both of them were transported to "Wonderland".

Dante looked around, and noticed something different.

"... where are all the rainbows and cutesy things you piled around Wonderland?"

Eris replied drily, "Etiquette is supposed to be formal, stiff and boring. I can't upset the mood with over-the-top cuteness. And anyway, Alice called earlier and threatened to eat all my cakes unless I changed the name of this place. So it's not Wonderland anymore."

"Fine, whatever-"

"It's Time-to-torture-Dante-land."

"What the hell?"

"Yes, what the hell indeed," Eris gave him a smug grin and then struck him on the head with a wooden ruler, "Where are your manners, boy?"

"What was that for?" Dante ducked at the second strike, and watched a few strands of hair fall to the ground. He tried to attack Eris, and realized that Rebellion was missing. So were Ebony and Ivory.

Eris noticed him looking for his weapons, and she called out in a pseudo-cheerful voice, "Don't bother looking for your weapons, Dante~ can't have you hacking this place into pieces. Besides, etiquette demands that weapons remain outside a room at all times."

"This is a room?" Dante gestured around, bewildered. Before he could continue adding that rooms don't have skies, the scenery transformed into an extremely grand-looking ballroom. Dante looked down and saw eight different cutlery utensils on the table.

Eris picked up one of the spoons and asked, "What do you call this?"

"I don't know, a spork?"

The ruler cracked as Eris twitched an eye, "You don't mention that foul word in front of me... ever!"

"What, spork?"

Eris teleported in a shower of gray dust-like powder, and reappeared on the other side. Expecting an attack from overhead, Dante ducked in time for Eris to hit him with a giant spoon.

"It is NOT a sp-" Eris caught herself in time, and then she made some of sort of gesture, as if she was asking for forgiveness. Then she declared, "This... is... a _runcible spoon_!"

Dante eyed the spork and snickered, "Does that word even exist?"

"Of course it does, don't be an idiot," Eris replied with a deadpan expression. She pointed at the spork and said, "This runcible spoon can pick up anything, from solid to liquid!"

"What about gas?" Dante asked with a smirk as he picked up a glass of orange juice.

"Why would you want to pick up gas? That is so unsophisticated of you! And anyway, you don't need more gas. You have enough inside you, don't you?"

Dante spluttered over his drink and tossed the glass at Eris. The trickster caught it, finished the remaining drink and continued as if nothing had happened, "Anyway, it is important in etiquette that you know the names of every utensil on the table. For example, this delightful tool known as a rattail spoon-"

"What the hell does it do? Cut damn rattails?"

"The British don't use it to cut damn rattails, Dante," Eris responded quickly, "They use it to cut bloody rattails."

Dante threw down the rattail spoon, "What's the difference?"

Eris said, "The British don't say 'damn', they say 'bloody'."

Dante picked up a normal-looking spoon and asked, "Then what's this one called? Hairtail fish spoon?"

Eris took the spoon and scrutinized it before laughing, "Oh, no. This is beat-the-stuffing-out-of-Dante spoon!" and she magically enlarged the spoon. Dante ducked, expecting yet another attack from the trickster, but she merely used it to mark an X on the ground.

Intrigued, Dante peered over the pile of food on the table over at where Eris was marking the X, and asked, "Whatcha doing?"

"X marks the spot, Dante," Eris told him, "and now you'll see why."

From where she stood, she swung the spoon around, catching Dante inside the spoon and then throwing him into the air. Eris cheered and watched him break through the ceiling. Then she pulled a gigantic frying pan over the X on the ground, piled wood and etiquette guide books around it, and lit a fire.

As she whipped out a cookbook from nowhere, Dante came back down from his trip to zero-G. He landed in the frying pan, and gave Eris a flabbergasted look. The trickster eyed him and said, "Wow, I didn't know you'd burn up so badly on re-entry. So I don't need the frying pan after all."

Then she poked Dante and then licked her finger, "Needs some pepper, though."

"I've had it with your pranks you demon," Dante growled and picked up one of the burning pieces of wood. He threw it at Eris, and then quickly picked up another and threw it at her as well.

Eris caught both pieces of wood, and as a third came forward, she threw both pieces into the air, and started juggling the pieces of wood.

"This is fun, Dante, I could go on all day," she drawled in sarcasm, and then yawned, "but _you_ don't have all day to spare, do you? So many etiquette lessons to cover, so little time."

By this time, Dante was out of the frying pan, and into the fire. He began chucking burning pieces of wood like a maniac, but still the wood continued to reappear.

Finally, he decided to get out of the fire before it did any serious harm, and he sat back on the chair he was on. Amazingly, the food on the table had moved into the frying pan earlier.

"Look, demon, I don't know why you're doing this to me, and if this is about my father, give me a break! If he owed you anything, go get it from him!"

"Oh, he _did_ owe me a lifetime of freedom. But I can't find him anywhere, so you'll take all the blame!"

"What did I ever do to you?"

"You were born."

At this, Dante put his head down on the table and started shaking. Eris merely stared at him, and then she grew a conscience and asked in a concerned voice, "Hey... you okay?"

Dante looked up and started laughing, "Am I okay? Am I okay? You tortured me, you pranked me, you kept me awake through the entire night, you put olives on my pizza, you tried to have me for lunch-"

"Breakfast, Dante."

"-you tried to have me for breakfast, and now you're asking me if I'm okay? Read my lips, I AM NOT OKAY!"

"Whoa, chill out," Eris held up both hands in an effort to calm down the now berserk Dante.

"Oh, I'll chill out alright..." Dante replied acidly, and grabbed the trickster before she could teleport. He ran over to a giant icebox that wasn't there before, opened the door, threw the trickster in, and slammed the door in her face.

He yelled at the icebox, "How d'ya like that, popsicle girl? Are you okay? Oh, I forgot, you can't be okay, because you're in an icebox and I... and I..." he looked around, and realized that _he_ was in an icebox.

Eris "poofed" and appeared right next to him, wearing a white fur coat, and asked in a poisonously sweet voice, "And you what?"

Dante took a step backward, tripped over a small mound of ice and fell into an ice chair. He tried to get up, and found that an ice table had materialized in front of him.

"You've been a bad boy, Dante, it's time you had some time-out until you learn some manners," Eris said, and then waved.

Dante stared at her and then put his head down on the table again. And this time he wasn't laughing.

Eris continued to grin at him, and then she teleported out. As she did, she called out, "Mind your elbows, Dante. Off the table."

* * *

To be continued...


	4. Remember who you are

Author's Note: Basically, I just uploaded all the existing parts I've written. I will update when I have new ideas... I don't want any fillers or bad works spoiling the whole story. Ideas are very welcome! What kind of embarrassing situations would you like to see Dante in? Name them and they'll find a way into one of the chapters!

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in Devil May Cry. I only own my character Eris, and the Judge of Hell (he's half-original... I built him up from an anime I watched). All events are purely fictitious. Any resemblance to real life people is purely coincidental.

**Remember Who You Are**

Just as Dante thought the temperature couldn't drop any lower, the mercury thermometer on the wall froze over.

"When I get out of here," Dante mumbled to himself, "I am so getting a shirt under this jacket..."

Then there was a loud "FWOOMP!" of displaced air, and Eris was standing beside him.

Dante glared at her and asked sarcastically, "Came to check up on me, girl?"

Eris replied sweetly, "Oh, no, I came in to get some ice cream... of course I came for you, you idiot. Your time-out's over. It's tomorrow now."

"It can't be tomorrow. Today is... today."

"Fine. Have it your way," Eris retorted, "then since it's still today, you can _chill out_ in your ice box. Goodbye."

Dante broke through the ice table and made a dive for Eris, who quickly jumped and clung to an icicle on the ceiling. "No! No, wait, fine, today is tomorrow. Whatever."

Eris looked down at him and stated, "Okay. And tomorrow, we're going to visit Yesterday."

Oh, crap. Please, no. Dante thought, as he remembered exactly what had happened to him a day ago. Still, he managed to mouth off to Eris, "What? You control time now? You can make time go back on itself?"

"No," Eris replied mildly, "I followed you your entire life recording particularly embarrassing incidents so that I can use it to blackmail Sparda when I see him. Or, I could use it to blackmail you, by threatening to show it to your good ol' dad."

Dante stopped fidgetting around, and fixed a baleful stare on Eris. He spoke in a slow, menacing voice, "Don't. Talk. About. My. Father."

Eris seemed to realize that Dante was on the verge of throttling her (which seemed to happen often these days), and she clung to the icicle tighter. "Okay, then I'll just blackmail you by threatening to show it to your brother."

"What? My brother?" Dante gave her a weirded-out look, "My brother's dead. He died in a demon attack on our home, along with my mother."

"No, he didn't," Eris pointed out, "he's as alive as you and me. In fact, I could show you where he is, and what he's doing."

"You can?"

"Well, not right now. I sent my clone- I mean, a fake me to trail after him too. I've got recordings of major turning points in his life, too."

"Like what?"

Eris whipped out a disc and put it into a disc player that materialized from nothing. That was when Dante realized that he was finally out of the ice box. He watched as a projector put up a video of Vergil... getting drunk in a bar that Dante recognized as being halfway across town.

"When was this taken?"

"A year ago. I lost him- I mean, the fake me lost him after he got drunk and killed a bunch of people and disappeared."

"Vergil killed a bunch of people?"

"Well, they look like people... but they don't move. And they have creepy expressions."

Dante mentally face-palmed as he muttered, "They're called mannequins. Ever heard of them?"

Eris heard him anyway, and she did a dramatic gasp, "Mannequins? Are they from Silent Hill?"

"Silent Hill?"

"It's a scary place-"

Dante held up both hands and said, "Alright, I see what's going on now. You're always mentioning some strange place, and when I ask about it, you explain what it is, and then you take me there and leave me with a group of freaks."

"So you figured out the Plan."

Dante smirked and declared, "Yeah, I figured out your grand scheme. Now you can't do anything to me without a fight."

"That's too bad. See, this Plan was devised by Vergil when he was drunk, and the fake me asked him what he wanted to happen to you."

"What the hell? That a**hole."

Eris doubled over in laughter and said, "Well, isn't that nice? Is this what guys mean by 'brotherly love'?"

"If this is how he shows brotherly love, I'd hate to think what he'd do to show sibling rivalry... he'd probably stick a sword up my..." Dante trailed off as he saw Eris' grin widen.

"I know that look," Dante glared at Eris, now wishing that he still had his weapons.

"Of course you do. It's time for our daily field trip. Off to Yesterday!"

There was a vortex of colors, the ground shot out from beneath his feet, and Dante felt as if he had been tossed into a giant washing machine, turbine and all.

And then Dante saw Vergil, as he remembered him.

"Vergil." Dante said, wary of what this representation might do. The avatar of Vergil in their childhood days was shorter than when he last saw him, but that was probably because most of his memories revolved around this shorter Vergil.

The avatar asked, "Are you Dante?"

"What's it worth to you?"

"... I knew it," the avatar shook his head slowly, "you never change, brother."

"Neither do you. But this isn't you, is it?"

Vergil's avatar merely raised his hand and studied it as if it were something fascinating. Then he said, "I am only a representation of your memories of your brother."

Eris appeared behind the avatar of Vergil via a fade effect, and she said cheerfully, "What a heartwarming family reunion! You should thank me, Dante."

"Thank you? Not likely. If what you say is true, then my brother... my real brother, is still out there. And he's no longer the size of a midget."

Avatar Vergil retorted in a restrained voice, "Hey, we're twins. You were the size of a midget, too."

"Oh, yeah? But you always were-"

Eris walked through the representation, and it dissolved into pixels. The pixels regrouped behind her and Sparda, as Dante remembered him, appeared.

Dante stared at the avatar, unable to think of a response. Then he tore his gaze away and pointed an accusing finger at Eris, "This isn't funny, you demon! Stop messing with my memories!"

"I'm not messing with them, I'm just bringing them to life."

The avatar Sparda stared at Dante for a while, then turned and walked away. Dante fought the urge to call out for him to wait, knowing it was futile. The avatar soon faded away, replaced by a representation of his mother, Eva.

Eva walked towards Dante, her eyes watching the ground. Then she looked up, a radiant smile forming. The avatar was eerily like his mother, and he almost believed, for one second, that his mother had come back to life. Eva held out her arms, as if waiting for a hug.

Then the smile disappeared, replaced by a look of terror. The same terror she must have experienced the day everything went to hell. The day she died. Dante couldn't stop himself this time; he ran forward to catch his mother as she crumpled to the ground, but the avatar merely dissolved into pixels again.

Eris appeared, standing right in front of him. For the first time since he met her, she had an almost sympathetic expression. "This is your Yesterday. I can see why you turned out to be such a person."

Dante didn't bother to reply. He sat down and stared at where his mother was standing a few moments ago.

"You think this is all a game, don't you, Eris?"

Hearing her name for the first time, the trickster whirled around, suspicion written on her face. "This is all one huge game where everyone gets turned into pawns, and you manipulate them as you wish, ain't it?"

Eris squeaked out a reply, "That's not true. I'm so insulted."

"..."

"... PUNK'D!" Eris shouted, and started laughing again. Dante scowled at her, biting back a retort that would only lead to more madness on her part. He simply waited for the laughing to end, and then he grabbed Eris by her hair and yanked her closer.

"I don't have time for your nonsense, and I'm going to ask nicely this time... are you done, or are you going to settle this in a fair fight?"

"Hey, watch the hair, I just waxed it-"

"Wax? Gross. You're just like Vergil."

"No, he used hairgel-"

"And he styles it like this," Dante half-smirked, running his hand over his fringe and, for a second, almost looking like Vergil. The coolness didn't last long; he was soon back to regular him. That was when he noticed the metallic hair-pin-like object in his hand.

"What's this?"

Eris began to retreat, and Dante stuck the pin into her hair. Eris barely squeaked out "Oh crap" before an avatar appeared. It was Sparda, but in demon form. Dante took a step back, wary of what would happen.

The avatar of demon Sparda turned and faced Eris, and a deep voice said something that Dante couldn't understand. It sounded like Latin, and Dante called out, "Oh, so it's your turn to go through Memory Lane, eh, Goldy?"

Eris was shaking like a leaf as she replied to the avatar in the same language. The avatar yelled at Eris, and she responded in a squeaky voice, "Please don't hurt me! I didn't put that gigapede in your room... honest!"

Dante watched in satisfaction as the avatar of demon Sparda chewed out Eris over said gigapede incident, and then the avatar faded away, replaced by a strange man with overly long hair. Which made him look more or less like a woman, save for the sign hanging from his sceptre that declared "I'M NOT A WOMAN!"

Eris hadn't even begun to recover from her ordeal before the avatar snapped off a monologue about causing chaos, literally raising Hell, and then he screamed at her, "YOU'RE BANNED FROM HELL!" Eris replied meekly, "Well, then I can go to Heaven, right?" To which the avatar sneered at her, "Fat hope. You're a demon. You're banned from Heaven, too."

"... ah, crap. Can't we talk this over nicely?"

"No, and shut up. I'm the Judge of Hell, I have the final say in this matter."

"Fine! I'm sending a guy so full of himself and so annoyingly calm that he'll make you wish I was there instead."

Dante did a double take, "Hey, if you're referring to me, I'm not dying anytime soon-"

"Not you, I'm sending Vergil."

"But he's not- don't you dare-"

Eris didn't get to retort in time. The avatar was replaced by thee red glowing orbs. Eris turned as white as a sheet as she shrunk back, and the three red glowing orbs said something that sounded even more menacing than what demon Sparda had said to her.

The trickster fainted, and the avatar disappeared. As did the surrounding landscape. Dante looked around and realized that they were back in town. He dragged Eris to one side of the road, muttered, "I should get paid to do stuff like this..." and then he saw Rebellion, Ebony and Ivory sitting on top of a dumpster. Dante took the weapons, and walked away.

"Have you forgotten something, Dante?" Eris' voice carried over, and Dante froze in his tracks. He turned and saw Eris hold up a huge mirror.

His hair was slicked back and spiked the same way he last saw Vergil fix his hair. And fixed to one of those spiked-up tufts was the hairpin that projected memories.

"... Damn it."

* * *

To be continued...


End file.
